November 2013 – Help-U-Sell® Connect

What We’re Thankful for in 2013

Help-U-Sell Real Estate Success Summit 2013 — Members of the Help-U-Sell family gather at Success Summit 2013. We're thankful for the opportunity to reunite this year!

Believe it or not, it’s nearly Thanksgiving again! Where has the year gone? One thing we do know about 2013 is that it was a great time to be part of Help-U-Sell Real Estate! If we were to list everything that has made us grateful in the past 11 months, everyone’s turkey dinner would get cold. So, we limit ourselves to the brightest highlights.

What we’re thankful for in 2013:

• Our amazing new franchisees! Three of them attended the Success Summit and fit right in. We expect to see all of them on the top producers list next year.
• Our established Help-U-Sell franchisees who continue to grow and push themselves to their highest potential.
• The generosity of our Help-U-Sell family, both in sharing their knowledge and ideas with each other and in giving to the less fortunate.
• The huge turnout at Success Summit 2013 and, more importantly, the warm camaraderie and valuable learning that happened at this and at every Summit.
• Winning Franchise Business Review’s Franchisee Satisfaction Award again, thanks to our franchisees.

Tell us what has inspired you to give thanks this year.

New Holiday Promotional Items

The updated edition of the Help-U-Sell Welcome Home Cookbook contains 12 new recipes.

How are you staying in touch with your CIs (Centers of Influence) this holiday season? We have worked with Alexander’s Print Advantage to create updated and new promotional pieces for our Help-U-Sell Real Estate franchisees. All items are on Alexander’s site now or will be available within the next few weeks.

Cookbooks.

Holiday cards.

Thank-you cards.

Calendar magnets.

What is your favorite or most effective way of staying in touch with your clients and CIs during the holidays?

Help-U-Sell Real Estate Fundraiser Garners 4,000 Meals

Chris Reed and Kimberly Zelena raffle off prizes at the Help-U-Sell Real Estate Success Summit.

Last month’s Success Summit was not only successful for us and our attendees, but it was also a boon for a food bank across the country from Las Vegas.

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, located in Virginia, has a place in the heart of Kimberly Zelena, owner of Help-U-Sell Direct Savings Real Estate. She and her office have donated to the food bank for the past three years. Knowing this, the Help-U-Sell home office surprised her with a fundraising raffle at this year’s Success Summit.

Prizes included agent recruitment signs, Help-U-Sell Real Estate cookbooks and branded promotional items. Chris Reed, an employee in the home office, collected money and distributed raffle tickets during the Summit. The raffle raised $550, and Direct Savings Real Estate matched the pot, donating a total of $1,100 to the food bank. Four meals can be provided for each dollar donated.

“I was surprised and overwhelmed by the generosity of the franchisees from across the United States,” Zelena said. “With the help of corporate Help-U-Sell Real Estate staff and the franchisees, for the second year in a row we are able to provide approximately 4,400 meals. What a great feeling to know that more people will not go hungry this holiday season.”

How is your office helping your local community this year? Share your charitable efforts with us.

Top Producers for October 2013

John Powell of Help-U-Sell Galleria Realty — Help-U-Sell Galleria Realty, owned by broker John Powell with his wife Maria, tied for third place with 11 closed sides in October.

As regular readers of Connect know, we held our annual Success Summit last month. Our top-producing offices took the word “success” to heart. Combined, they closed 95 sides in October!

1) Help-U-Sell Direct Savings Real Estate, in Waynesboro, Va., completed the month with a lucky 13 closed sides: one buyer side, eight seller sides and two dual-sided transactions.

1) Tied for first place, Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties closed four buyer sides, seven seller sides and one dual-sided transaction.

2) Help-U-Sell Metropolitan, in the greater Detroit area, finished the 10th month with 12 closed sides: eight buyer sides and four seller sides.

2) Help-U-Sell Santa Maria was almost as balanced as possible last month. Broker/owner Ken Kopcho’s office closed two buyer sides, four seller sides and three dual-sided transactions.

2) Help-U-Sell Select Real Estate, out of Eugene, Ore., also closed a dozen sides consisting of two buyer sides, eight seller sides and one dual-sided transaction.

3) In a three-way tie for third place, Phoenix’s Help-U-Sell Galleria Realty claimed 11 closed sides. They were almost evenly split between buyers and sellers, with six being buyer sides and five seller sides.

3) Help-U-Sell Greensboro also had six buyer sides, which makes sense given broker/owner Jack Bailey’s successful buyer consultation program, along with three seller sides and one dual-sided transaction.

3) North Carolina’s Help-U-Sell Triad Realty wrapped up October with two buyer sides, seven seller sides and one dual-sided transaction.

We celebrate our double-digit producers! We also want to acknowledge five offices that closed transactions on properties with sale prices of more than $1 million! Congratulations to Help-U-Sell Action Properties, Help-U-Sell Federal City Realty, Help-U-Sell Smart Realty Pasadena, Help-U-Sell Vantage Realty, and Help-U-Sell Westside Realty, which had two closings over $1 million. One was for $11 million, including furnishings!

[Figures updated as of Nov. 12, 2013.]